Shared Experience: Transport driver
Art and War
Nora Heysen
Transport driver (Aircraftwoman Florence Miles)
oil on canvas
66.6 x 81.8cm
Heysen painted a number of portraits of strong women, and selected Miles because she was a “young, forward lass”. In 1942, aged 21, Miles enlisted in the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force, the first and largest of the three women’s services formed during the war. As she held a driver’s licence, she was assigned to drive a bus. This is a compelling portrait of a confident young woman who, despite the masculine uniform and large leather gloves, retains her femininity.
Paintings
- Corvette Galley
Leonard Brooks - Glass-blowers 'Gathering' from the Furnace
Mervyn Peake - Parachute Riggers
Paraskeva Clark - Sections of buoyancy tank and floating caissons, Sydney graving dock
Herbert McClintock - No 1 projectile shop, (Commonwealth Ordnance Factory, Maribyrnong)
Sybil Craig - Working in the snow, Australian Forestry Unit, Scotland
Sheila Hawkins - Hull Riveting
Frederick B. Taylor - ATS at Work
Rodrigo Moynihan - The Camouflage Workshop, Leamington Spa, 1940
Edwin La Dell - The Merchant Navy: The chain-locker
Henry Carr - Private Roy, Canadian Women's Army Corps
Molly Lamb Bobak - Ruby Loftus screwing a Breech-ring
Dame Laura Knight - The billy boy
William Dobell - Transport driver (Aircraftwoman Florence Miles)
Nora Heysen - Weighing Down The Tail, New Brunswick
Moses Reinblatt - Patients waiting Outside a First Aid Post in a Factory
Ruskin Spear